A Right to Education?: San Antonio v. Rodriguez and the Need to Re-examine the Discourse of Equality in Education.

This essay elaborates on the necessary relationship between social discourse and social policy. By analyzing the 1973 Supreme Court decision in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, I seek to complicate the assumptions that sometimes guide post-civil rights narratives about equality in education. Legal precedent and public policy often reflect "official" frameworks for defining equal rights that are substantially different from public and social discourse. And because the public discourse on American education is important historically to the civil rights movement and continues to be foundational to present-day debates on race, class and equality, Rodriguez serves as an important case study for examining both contemporary American sociopolitical norms as well as efforts toward social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]